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Diversity is one of the primary factors influencing organizational culture, and it is a multifaceted element that impacts its ability to manage various issues affecting daily operations. Diversity can be an organizational drive for success and resilience under an empowering culture, offer competitive advantage stemming from its ability to serve diverse market needs, and enhance productivity by establishing a positive work environment to promote creativity and innovation. Organizational response to diversity is a topic that has received immense interest from scholars due to the positive effect of diversity on organizations and the imminent challenges they face to absorb the differences and create a productive environment for employees to feel valued and exploit their talents. An organizational failure to effectively manage diversity can be a foundation of crisis and unending conflict between groups and negatively affect essential success factors such as creativity and innovativeness, flexibility, successful adjustments to market changes, and individual and organizational growth. Thus organizations should strive to implement policies and practices that promote diversity through inclusivity and employee engagement.
Organizational diversity influences its risk management factor and resulting resilience in the event of risk occurrence. Employee background influences their approach to different issues, and diversity can broaden discussion approaches and make informed decisions. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), it failed to foresee the 2007 economic resurgence due to the “a high degree of groupthink, a general mindset that a major financial crisis in large advanced economies was unlikely, and incomplete analytical approaches.” The above factors are attributable to having men as the dominant gender in the organization. Men are often risk-averse and less paranoid about uncertainties. Homogeneity of the organizational workforce limits its line of thought and perception on specific issues. Individual backgrounds have a unique perception of specific issues such as individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity/femininity), influencing an individual’s approach to risk management, leadership approach, and communication.
Understanding diversity founds the basis to realize its effect on organizational culture. According to Duchek et al., Diversity is the distribution of differences among members of a unit regarding a common attribute (391). It addresses different constructs that stem from gender, religion, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and identity. Diversity affects various organizational cultural attributes, such as values, openness, and communication. The above elements have a ripple effect on coping capabilities, such as understanding and problem-solving approaches. Besides, it affects an organization’s ability to anticipate issues and their effects, such as observation and preparedness, to address an eventuality risk. Diversity also influences the adaptation capability, which entails learning and reflection on issues affecting an entity. Organizational culture influences its ability to manage heterogeneity. A Company can tap into the positive effect of diversity only if its multicultural organizations view variety as an opportunity to learn and integrate (Duchek et al. 402).
organizations should pursue diversity to tap into its benefits and gain a competitive edge.
Employee Engagement
Adopting organizational policies and practices that promote diversity creates a conducive work environment to promote trust and unity among employees. The social exchange theory argues that there is a positive correlation between diversity and employee engagement. According to Downey et al., a trusting climate establishes approaches through which diversity practices can enhance an employee’s sense of engagement at work(). Organizations encourage employee engagement through promoting inclusion in decision-making on matters affecting the organization and employees. A high sense of workforce inclusion promotes trust through diversity practices. Inclusion is an essential diversity element that influences the extent to which an employee feels like an insider through access to important networks and participation in the decision-making process. Engaged employees collaborate with their peers for the organization benefits, such as creating a supportive work environment. It also promotes commitment and a positive work environment resulting in improved production and organizational performance. Importantly engagement requires a two-way relationship between the employer and employees. Inclusion influences various human resource outcomes, such as organizational commitment, work retention, job satisfaction, and effective employee performance. An inclusive environment is multifaceted and entails open communication, transparent recruitment promotion, development processes, and fair practices. Such encourages employees to speak up and fully participate in issues, thus reducing discrimination and harassment(Estlund 24). Besides, it provides the management with insights into issues that would otherwise go unaddressed. Performance management dimensions, such as performance agreement, performance evaluation, and continuous feedback, enhance employee engagement by setting targets. On the contrary, discrimination against employees based on particular demographic attributes such as age, gender, and religious backgrounds creates rivalry among employees resulting in constant disagreements among groups, thus harming their individual performance, decision-making process, and the overall organizational performance. Therefore, organizations should promote an inclusive culture, create a sense of belonging among its employees to establish a positive work environment, and exploit their workforce’s full potential.
Efficiency
Promoting diversity as an attribute of organizational culture influences an organization’s productivity through its impact on employee morale. Employees from diverse backgrounds differ in their experiences and perception on different issues that provide a broader perspective on issues. The diverse perspective triggers active discussions that result in effective decisions and solutions to challenges(Duchek et al. 392). A distinct workforce enables an organization to effectively exploit its market potential by tapping into a wide customer base through understanding their unique needs from the heterogeneous employee’s lenses. Moreover, hiring employees based on their diverse talents promotes employee retention and fights unconscious biases to promote optimal labor resources utilization. In addition to the above ways in which diversity promotes effectiveness, it contributes to brand improvement and global reputation. Such performance attributes enhance profitability and create equal opportunity for the organization and employees to grow and thrive, thus enhancing brand visibility. Employees often act as brand ambassadors by creating awareness of their products and services among peers.
innovation and creativity
diversity promotes creativity and innovation to resolve organizational challenges and pursue growth and thrive. However, diversity can also cause intergenerational conflict and harm innovativeness and creativity. Thus, raising the need to establish a knowledge-sharing culture among employees. The millennial can tap into the experiences of the older generations while they learn from their technology skills. Moreover, group culture promotes mentorship, loyalty, and trust among employees, promoting creativity and innovation. According to Colvic & Williams, group culture promotes trust and knowledge sharing essential for joint creativity and unity, essential for the innovation process (Goswami & Goswami 69). Research studies have also established that organizations with gender diversity hinder discrimination by embracing group culture, thus promoting ideas across genders. Moreover, research studies have established that an organization’s commitment to promoting knowledge-sharing culture influences creativity and innovation. For example, Colvic & Williams quote Xiaomeng et al. argument that empowering leadership promotes creativity through psychological empowerment, which motivates employees to engage in the creative process.
Furthermore, organizational culture influences the level of trust between leaders and their subordinates and employee engagement. According to Goswami & Goswami, there are four main enablers of employee engagement: leadership, engaging manager, voice, and integrity that influence an organization’s perception of its employees(71). Trust between seniors and their juniors in the hierarchical relationships creates mutual respect and encourages employees to deliver beyond organizational expectations. Trust strengthens the relationship between organizational leaders and their subordinates, promotes mutual respect, and encourages employees to enhance their performance. Employee engagement is a vital driver for organizational success. Engaged employees portray high will power to succeed and are willing to increase their input to achieve optimal performance. an inclusive work environment establishes positive energy among employees, thus pushing them to exploit their potential
A diverse workforce offers numerous benefits to an organization that gives it a competitive edge. It promotes innovation and productivity and creates a standard culture that discourages in-group competition. Employee diversity positions an organization competitively to serve a diverse clientele. It offers a better understanding of legal, political, social, economic, and cultural requirements based on input from represented communities. Moreover, such organizations supply a wide variety of solutions to problems around services, sourcing, and allocating resources, thus promoting effectiveness. Besides, individual employees offer their talents and experiences and equip an organization with a large pool of ideas that enhance adaptability and resilience to market turmoil. Despite the many benefits of a diverse workforce, it presents numerous managerial challenges that can negatively affect its performance. Such challenges may include language barriers, attitude clashes, and major disagreements on issues. However, Saxena suggests various approaches through which an organization can manage the challenges above (84). Firstly, it should encourage using common language within the organization to avoid the outsider and insider view on issues. Secondly, the management should conduct motivational and mentorship programs to empower semiskilled employees and empower others to exploit their full potential. Thirdly, the organization should establish open channels of communication amongst its staff and management, and it should encourage employee participation to foster a sense of inclusion.
Establishing an organizational culture that promotes diversity provides a competitive advantage for it to tap into its numerous benefits such as promoting creativity and innovation, establishing enduring relationships between managers and subordinates, creating a positive work environment, and enhancing productivity and efficiency. Besides, it enhances an organization’s ability to serve diverse clientele by effectively addressing their diverse needs. Moreover, a diverse workforce allows an organization to view its challenges from its employees’ perspective, thus providing a wide pool of potential solutions to choose from. However, a diverse workforce presents challenges that can negatively affect the organization if not well managed. Such drawbacks include language barrier, unproductive competition, internal grievances, and escalated hostility.